"For workers with low lifetime household earnings, total Social Security benefits received over a lifetime exceed dedicated taxes paid over a lifetime, on average" eh

I think that Bush & Co. may be a little nervous about the SS aspect of his amnesty proposal - or at least the public's reaction to it - because his (Specter's) plan now has the provision that the "guest-workers" will not be a part of SS in future earnings, in addition to not being on the citizenship fast-track. Of course, what the final bill will be - or how it will be changed over the years if enacted - is anybody's guess. And this doesn't affect those who are already on the SS plan.

The Totalization agreement that he has drawn up with Mexico but not yet sent to Congress would allow the normalized illegal workers to make back claims on money paid into SS even while illegal after they return to Mexico. What this would mean in real money is anybody's guess as well since we don't know how many would qualify (maybe we should call it a guessed-worker proposal?) or how much fraud would be in the system. Since the entire illegal immigrant system is teeming with fraud and since fraud is basically Mexico's form of government, it would be a lot. One example is combining the relatively small receipts of several workers to qualify for one worker. Remember all of their ID is fraudulent so this wouldn't be that difficult. Plus these immigrants would qualify for SS benefits with less years of work than citizens as I understand it.

Most people have absolutely no knowledge of this agreement and no idea of how it could affect SS. Not long ago, I posted on a blog where the general tone was how we owed these immigrants so much, etc, etc and how they paid millions of dollars into SS without any hope of getting anything back etc. I posted a short explanation of the Totalization agreement, and was met with total silence. This blog had been very critical of GWB's proposal to privatize part of SS. Maybe word is leaking out?

Watch for another bobmshell coming out of the trilateral meeting of President Bush, Pres. Vicente Fox, and the new Canadian Prime Minster.
Look for a multi hundred billion dollar proposal to give US SS benefits to illegal immigrants.

It may be a doozie.

Just for laughs, check out the first paragraph of this:

[New York state filed a $250 million fraud suit Wednesday against H&R Block Inc., charging that the nation's largest tax preparation service steered more than 500,000 customers into a money-losing retirement account plan.]

Uh-huh, I see. So I guess the government doesn't have a corner on the "money-losing retirement account plan" racket. However this does give me an idea...

This problem -- as well as other problems with the Social Security system -- are not a "surprise" to some people...

Most illegals are, and likely most (foreseen) "guest workers" will be, Hispanics who earn low wages. Per this link:

[For workers with low lifetime household earnings, total Social Security benefits received over a lifetime exceed dedicated taxes paid over a lifetime, on average.]

And:

[The opposite is true for workers with average and above-average earnings.]

That is, even workers earning "average" wages will pay more into the SS system than they will ever get out of it.

Great.

Question: Then how can such a "system" provide real "security" for "average" workers? Which is I think what it was supposed to do. No earnings, and you don't even get your principal back.

It's absolutely criminal.

A little libertarianism could be a good thing; like just enough to get rid of SS, or at least begin to.

"as remarkable as a social security office"

Try virtually any DMV office in Calif -- it's like visiting a third world country. One where you also have to wait in line.

In 1996 my mother was seventy-two years old and there was some kind of screw up in her social security benefits. She was crippled and could not drive, so I took her to the Social Security office in Modesto, California. That is how I was present in the social security office to witness three remarkable things.

Remarkable thing number one: My mother was a born and raised American. Social security knew more about her than she knew about herself. She had to show her social security card and her California I.D. card (this I understood). However, they refused to deal with her until she could come back with her birth certificate, her marriage certificate, and her husband's death certificate. (All of that was in the social security records. All they had to do was push a button to verify it, but they wouldn't go to the trouble).

Remarkable thing number two: I saw a Mexican woman trying to get social security benefits. She didn't speak a word of English (a friend of hers was translating), she had no identification whatsoever (not even a Mexican I.D.), and she could not show any proof whatsoever regarding the length of time she had been in the United States. She was told to go home and bring back a bus ticket to prove when she entered the United States, and then she wouldn't have any problem drawing social security benefits.

Remarkable thing number three: A little kid who was with the Mexican woman and her translator, pulled down his pants and took a crap in the planter in front of the building.

I have been to stock car races and county fairs, but I have never seen anything as remarkable as a social security office! Anything they do would not surprise me.

Another thing that isn't well known is that during the previous tri-lateral summit in Crawford, President Bush agreed, in principle, to the Social Security payments to illegal aliens and the cost was estimated as $325 billion. I am not sure over what time period. I just remember reading a short news summary at the time. Wish now I had dug deeper and saved the material. Sorry, I can't give a reference citation.

The 1986 amnesty had a fraud rate of something like 70%. No, that is not a typo - seventy per cent.